If sin existed
it does not hold a name in our green palace

bewitched by the eyes of fantasy we run
into open grass plains

the gloaming border sky blinds us
like a kaleidoscopic phantasm

that encircles us
and entrances us with the rhythm our laughter makes
as it echoes across the big green
like chimes on midsummer night

here
between the bur oak trees
and the trill of the white tipped dove
we shape shift
compress tight
to explode

I shift, move, make my way upon extreme waves of moods. After waiting for the lull of the tide, I cautiously float upon the stillness of the ocean, and I am overcome by the heaviness of uncertainty. Though I am relentless after the crushing sting of each passing wave, I am emotionally unmoving to the touch of the gentleness of the wind.
I swim to small uncharted islands where I lay with my naked soul as the stars whisper their stories to me over the blackened haze of the midnight sky, and I listen keenly as I greet melancholy with hushed ambivalence.

I wait in the quiet
not to scatter the voices
then snarled in cypress
I shift through a
hollow of gypsy moths
hidden in the moon daze
a voice unstilted slithers above

What is it like out there, beyond this place?

-everyone hunches in the crowd

like the rainbow snake
the voice makes home
around me and moves in
the mad underground
under me

What are you afraid of?

-to be quiet in another voice

*-to run like water

I am waiting
sleeping
then counting
I am cornered at the edge of the room
there are four walls
a window
one ceiling
and day
after day
I am feeling

unreal

In this tidal experience
I am forever afloat,
then moving like canyon rapids.
My mind sits just above
water's break,
and I am
relentless
and I am
fighting
the unshakable strength of the ocean,
and sleeping beneath the ocean floor
lay wakeless memories of me
that rust and erode
comfortably below
my flailing feet.
After each stinging wave
that crushes my chest,
then steals my breath,
I am eternally swept away
by the Undertow.

Outside of the destruction this illness has beholden me to,
I find myself wondering,

is there is a part of me still left?

Outside the seemingly endless strings of purchases
of books,
trinkets,
miscellany items,
that I found absolutely necessary at the time to own,

Outside the relationships where mania
seductively shrouded itself as love,

Outside the serendipitous misadventures,

Outside the compulsive longing to be ******
and disposed of because I viewed myself as an empty vessel to be
filled-in,

Outside the reckless dive into drugs,

is there a part of me still left?

Outside
I look after the storm,
and within my total being,
I ask myself
which I,
is I?

The word pain is whole and plain
it cannot be cut into pieces like my name
Ma/ri/tza

I am
a wild woman
the coyote makes its home
underneath my skin
and rekindled from below my abdomen
a snarl escapes
ignites
like wild fire

I crawl below
I break the silver twine cloak
mother moon stitched out of love
and I sever the serpent chains
that once restrained my calloused hands
once marked red with the hard etched lines
that slither on my palms like rivers filled with blood

underneath the night
poachers march through the horned wreathed arms of father tree
their whispers awaken me

I dig my hardened nails into the broken soil
I un­hinge
I rise illuminated
from the Earth's inside.

I arrive searching at a crossroads
the dense fecund flora around me whispers,

This is a labyrinthine quest

long bark fingers reach out from the shadowscapes
they hand me a stone tablet
transcribed with incomprehensible scripture
I grace my fingers over the stone
the words chime within me,

There is no prize
no obvious winners
only scathed players

the words resound
beneath the fierceness of the wind

If they speak from the soil
they murmur hidden truths

the leaves encircle themselves
in a waltz around my body
and assure me,

You cannot listen too keenly
you may imagine yourself­
a half truth
a projection
that isn't real

out of fear
I rise to the tops of the echoing wood
then fall as the ravenous roots
force me onto a cobblestone pathway
only lit
by the corvine call.

Memories

swarm in swirling swatches

like the way soft watercolor paint dances

on the edge of rough pressed paper

images bury themselves in their tunneled homes

then drip down on my hardened brown boots

I wind
down
Hecate's path
the tearing wind
carries away my clothing.

What is left of me
wavers
above me like
white sheets
in battle
with
wild wood
fire.

I peer over shadows cast
and I see the great barred owl
throned among
the horned wreathed arms of trees.

Her call dissolves
the annealed armor
around my heart
and from the kisses
She plants over my eyelids
all color and
all life
slithers away
before my sight.

The lingering light
hisses like Her serpent
as it travels below
to a place
underneath
my
self.

the wind
seductive
with fierce
sway of
winter's leave
coerced the
landscape

the sun
rose over
waking trees
as their fingers
rattled with
fruits shrunken
hard and dry

bellow
an ancient pulse
beguiled ecstatic
sound that
trembled above
in a waltz to
the whine of the
clarinet

I close
my eyes
relish
the sonorous
sounds of
Her weather
and She whispers
*it is not the moon, I tell you
it is these violas,
that illuminate the ground

our malleable beings
lay gentle asleep
as water pads upon
indigo springs of water
infinitum
rests slumberous
on our verdure palms

taken and torn
dreams lay waste
beneath pillows
stitched into slapdash costumes
too heavy to wear

diaphanous florets of dandelion
dance quiet
as vocal cataclysms awake
reverberate heavier
than summer air

trees
throne power aloft
with fervid strength
our alate souls rise